


Night Confessions

by Fenix21



Category: Leverage
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 13:38:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2193780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot's good with pain, but not this kind. His body has always obeyed him, not betrayed him. So, when he comes down with an acute case of appendicitis, the team has to face the idea that Eliot isn't invincible, and they all find out just what being a family means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Confessions

Eliot was hurting. Bad.

The trouble was he hadn’t even beat anyone up yet and gotten fair return on his efforts. If this were the result of a fight, say a smattering of bruises, a few gashes and lacerations, or even some cracked ribs, he could deal with it. This was different. This pain was inside. His guts felt like he’d drunk acid and it was slowly eating out his stomach lining, and he could feel a fever starting to set in. He’d hardly been sick a day in his life and he didn’t want to start now, not on the cusp of a new job that someone’s life was depending on. Most of the jobs they picked up just involved getting money, or documents, or taking down some blood sucking bigwig; but occasionally someone’s life would be on the line and that’s when Eliot’s presence was most important. He couldn’t afford to get sick right now.

He shifted in his chair while Hardison pulled up more financial information on their mark and wrapped a surreptitious arm across his stomach. God damn, it hurt. He felt like throwing up again, except he was pretty sure there wasn’t anything left anywhere in him to throw up after the bout he’d had last night and this morning. He’d opted out of breakfast because of it and that was making things worse he was sure. His hands were shaking and his body, accustomed to burning through energy and calories at a pretty high pace, was running on empty. He took a deep breath to swallow against the rising nausea and paid for it with a sharp pain behind his bellybutton that radiated down and into his lower back. He almost hunched over but managed to catch himself and grit his teeth.

He felt Parker beside him watching him in that unique way she had that only involved her peripheral vision and some sixth sense she’d garnered in her line of work as a cat burglar, though it may have been the other way around and that sixth sense had cut her out perfectly for the life she chose to lead. He cut her a glowering sidelong look in hopes of warning off her attentions. She just re-crossed her legs under the table and fidgeted with the fabric of her pants leg. All outward appearances were that she wasn’t paying him any attention at all. 

Eliot turned back to the panorama of screens in front of him. Hardison had moved on to the building security schematics and guard rotations. The part where Eliot was supposed to be paying attention; but another wave of nausea hit him, coming up the back of his throat all acidy and bad tasting. He swallowed reflexively and nearly gagged.

“Shit…” he lurched up from the table, spinning toward the kitchen. The bathroom was the other direction and down a short hallway. Too far. 

“Eliot?” Parker spun on her stool, watching as he stumbled to the sink just barely in time to retch the churning acid from his stomach down the drain. 

“Damn, man…” Hardison said, making to go over to Eliot, but Nate held up a hand of caution.

“Eliot, you all right?” Nate asked in an even tone.

Eliot struggled to hold onto the edge of the sink, to stay standing, to hold it together long enough to get out of the apartment. He was sick. There was nothing for it but to admit it. He needed to get home, to lay down and sleep this off. He tried to straighten, but the pain in his belly increased tenfold, and he doubled forward over the counter. A groan escaped him. He started to go down.

“Jesus…!”

Nate was the first to reach him, catching Eliot under the arms as he slow motion fell backward from the sink. Hardison vaulted the long conference table, something that might have impressed Eliot had he been conscious enough to see it. Parker jumped the island bar and sat perched atop it as Sophie dropped down beside Nate and pressed a hand to Eliot’s sweaty forehead.

“Nate, he’s burning up,” she said.

“Eliot? Eliot, what’s wrong?” Nate asked, forcing his voice to stay calm. Eliot never reacted well to panic. It annoyed him. “Tell us what you need.”

“D—don’t know…what’s wrong…” Eliot rasped out between groans. It was worse. So much worse. He felt like someone had stuck a Bowie knife in him and twisted—in six different places. 

“Tell us where it hurts, Eliot,” Sophie crooned.

“Stomach…” Eliot managed. Bile was pushing up his throat again. He tried to sit up, to get a grip on the sink edge. He was not going to throw up in the middle of the kitchen floor in front of everybody. No way.

“Hardison. Trashcan. Now,” Nate said, snapping his fingers. Hardison flailed a moment, then grabbed the trashcan beside the sofa a couple of feet away, upended it in the sink and tossed it down to Nate. 

“Sophie.” Nate didn’t have to say more. He pushed Eliot up and Sophie tugged his shoulder over so he could make the trashcan when the next wave of retching up acid took him. Nate held back his hair with one hand and kept the other firmly wrapped across his shoulders to steady him until he’d exhausted himself and couldn’t bring up anything else. He fell back against Nate’s chest, breathing heavily.

“Flu?” Sophie hazarded quietly.

Nate shook his head. “I don’t think so. This is worse. Pull up his shirt.”

Sophie gently tugged up Eliot’s shirt to reveal the waistband of his jeans biting painfully into his swollen belly. Nate hummed a little under his breath and reached to prod very gently at Eliot’s abdomen and side to be met with a bitten outcry.

“Appendicitis,” Nate said. “Hardison, call an ambulance. As bad as he is, I’m afraid it’s already burst.”

Hardison scrambled for his phone.

“No hospital,” Eliot moaned softly.

Parker leaned down from her perch and reached over Nate’s shoulder to put gentle fingers against Eliot’s cheek. “No help for it darlin’,” she said softly, mimicking Eliot’s softest southern drawl. “We gotta get you better.”

Sophie passed a look at Nate who raised a slow eyebrow in Parker’s direction, but she just ignored it and petted Eliot’s cheek with a gentle rhythmic stroke one might reserve for a cat. 

“Hold on, son,” Nate said near Eliot’s ear. “Just hold on. We’re going to get you help.”

 

By the time the EMT’s arrived, Eliot had blessedly passed out. They preliminarily confirmed Nate’s diagnosis and immediately set up an IV drip of high dose antibiotics to start flushing his system on the way to the ER where they had radioed ahead the need for a surgical team. All that was left for the rest of them to do was follow in the van. 

Parker was crying without knowing it, and Hardison was slack faced and pale as a ghost—if that was possible for a black man. Sophie sat in the passenger seat, her hands wound together in her lap, willing each red light to change faster under her breath, and Nate didn’t think she knew she was doing it aloud. He drove methodically, keeping a loose eye on the ambulance, knowing they would lose it soon in the growing traffic, but it didn’t matter. Them getting to the hospital any sooner wasn’t going to make any difference except that they would have to wait that much longer for word on Eliot’s condition.

This wasn’t the first time Eliot had gone down, wasn’t even the first time they’d had to take him to the hospital, but it was the first time they’d seen him so vulnerable. It made sense for a man like Eliot to be in pain after he’d beaten up a dozen guys with guns with his bare hands. They’d watched him suck it up on countless occasions, gritting and grinding his teeth through cracked ribs, gashed knuckles, bruised kidneys, dislocated shoulders, grazes from every gauge bullet known to man, laceration and puncture wounds, and even a concussion or two; but that was pain he was used to, it was inflicted pain that he had fought for and wore like a dubious badge of honor.

This time was different. This was his own body betraying him, and it wasn’t even this immediate instance that had them all sick with worry. It was the knowledge that one day Eliot’s body would turn on him in a more vital way, a way that might prove fatal. It may be his heart having taken too much strain over the years to keep him going, or his brain when he got hit once too hard across the back of the head. It could be as simple as the everyday aches and pains that came with age catching up with him that would make one move just a fraction too slow and let the bullet find its mark, or the blade its sticking place.

Nate couldn’t think about it. 

He glanced in the rearview mirror to see Hardison had looped his arms around Parker’s waist and had his face buried in her neck. He looked over at Sophie who made valiant effort at a reassuring smile and reached out to take her hand, squeezing hard. He turned his attention back to the road. The ambulance surged ahead though a clear spot in traffic and ran a red light and turned a corner. He could hear the sirens drifting further away in the distance. Sophie tensed under his hand, and Parker keened lightly from the back seat, but Nate just did what he always did and held his team together.

“It’s okay, people. He’s going to get there that much faster and get the help he needs. He will be all right.”

It was supposed to reassure them and he had injected his voice with assurance and steel, enough that Sophie gave him a quick nod of approval, but somehow it didn’t feel like enough. Not nearly enough.

 

The ER waiting room was bustling causing Parker to cringe and twitch at all the sick and injured people around her despite Hardison acting like a oversized walking shadow that tried to keep her in the shade of it all. Thankfully, Eliot had arrived more than twenty inures before and been taken directly to surgery given the nature of his condition. The ER nurse, who was pleasantly kind in the face of such a demanding crowd, directed them to the main part of the hospital and the surgical waiting room after Nathan flashed his driver’s license that claimed he was Eliot’s uncle.

They sat in the smaller waiting room in a loose circle. Nathan was nursing a cup of coffee, Sophie had found a teabag in her purse and was absently bobbing it in and out of the styrofoam cup of hot water Nate had tracked down for her nearly an hour ago. Parker was absently nibbling on a bag of pretzels that Hardison had dug out of his jacket pocket, and Hardison was checking the the security on this wing of the hospital and digging up every speck of dirt he could find on any one of the doctors that might touch Eliot in any way. 

Four hours later a doctor came to the door still wearing scrubs, a surgical mask hanging around his neck. “Mr. Blackwell?”

It took Nate a second to respond. “Yeah. Yes. Doctor, I’m Mr. Blackwell.”

“You are Mr. Hale’s…?”

“Uncle,” Nate said quickly. “He’s my sister’s boy. God rest her soul. How is Eliot?”

The doctor nodded sympathetically at Nate’s interjection about Eliot’s impostor mother which was specifically designed to set him at ease on the family ties. He held out the chart that was in his hands. “Well, I’m pleased to say that Eliot came through surgery well, though quite frankly—and I’m not supposed to believe in stuff like this, being a doctor—I think it was a miracle.  He had a perforated appendix which has been spilling infected material into his abdominal cavity I’m guessing since sometime during the night. It’s honestly amazing he made it this far. We had one hell of a clean up job in there.” The doctor was staring wide eyed at the chart until he glanced at Nate’s anxious face and suddenly seemed to remember himself. He straightened a bit and tugged his professional demeanor back in place. “It was a very serious situation, Mr. Blackwell. He could have died from the toxicity levels in his blood from what was getting into his system. We’re going to have to keep him here a few days to be sure we got everything. He’s on some very hefty antibiotics, so I’m hoping for the best.”

Nate swallowed and asked the hard question. “And if you didn’t get everything?”

“We’ll have to go back in and clean him out again,” the doctor said. “You have to understand, Mr. Blackwell, most people couldn’t suffer the kind of pain Eliot was. His …stamina, for lack of a better word, allowed the toxins to spread over a much greater area than we would normally see. I would expect in any other instance that he is an amazing man, but it would have served him much better this time not to be so…superhuman.”

Nate couldn’t help a breathy laugh at that. “He is definitely one of a kind Doctor…uh?”

“Granger,” the man held out his hand. “I’ll be checking back in with you in a few hours. Eliot should be getting out of recovery in another thirty minutes or so. You can see him then.”

“Thanks, doctor,” Nate said, and the man nodded and walked away.

 

Forty-five minutes after that, they were all standing clustered around Eliot’s bed as he dragged himself by fits and starts out from under anesthesia.

“He isn’t going to be in a good mood,” Parker remarked as she watching the tips of Eliot’s fingers twitch against the sheets like he was trying to ball up his fist for a punch. 

“No,” Nate agreed. “No, he isn’t, but we’re just going to have to sit on him for the time he has to be here and make sure he gets through this. Right?”

Everyone nodded in unison.

“Maybe you all should wait in the hall for just a minute,” Nate suggested. “He might react a little better if there’s only one of us here at a time.”

They reluctantly agreed and shuffled out into the hall just as Eliot’s eyes shot open. Nate was prepared. He had a hand braced across Eliot’s sternum to hold him down and the other ready for the admittedly weakened and poorly aimed but still effective chopping strike that came trying to knock it away until he was able to focus just enough to realize it was Nate holding him and he was safe. 

“It’s all right, Eliot,” Nate hushed him softly. “You’re safe. We’re all here, and you’re going to be fine.”

“No hospitals…” Eliot mumbled through numb lips

“Yeah, well, it was that or die, my friend,” Nate said with a sour smile.

“Just a stomach ache…” Eliot growled, but it came out a little graveled and a lot more pathetic than usual. 

“Try acute appendicitis,” Nate corrected. “Perforated. For hours. You were hanging onto life with nothing but your fingernails, Eliot.”

Eliot’s eyes widened fractionally, as much surprise as he ever registered unintentionally. “Oh.”

Nate waited a moment, then patted him on the shoulder. “But you’re going to be all right now. A few days of observation and then you can go home.”

Eliot nodded absently, squirmed a little and found a hot, dull pain across his side and belly, but not like before. Not nearly as bad as before. 

“Yeah, I imagine you’re going to have a nice scar to add to your collection,” Nate said when Eliot’s hand twitched across his stomach where part of the incision was under the blankets. “They probably had to open you up quite a bit to get in a clean you up.”

Eliot grunted. Nate held a straw to his lips and he drank a little, gratefully.

“Now, are you in a mood you can let the others see you?” Nate asked. He received another growl in answer. He held Eliot’s gaze for a second and then said quietly, “They aren’t really here for you, you know. They’re here for themselves; to reassure themselves that their world is still intact; that everything is okay and going to go back to normal.”

Eliot lifted an eyebrow to this and Nate smiled sadly. “You just don’t get what an important part of our lives you are.” He sighed. “Makes you even better at what you do, I suppose. So?”

“Yeah,” Eliot said gruffly. “Yeah, they can come in.”

Nate poked his head around the door and motioned for the others to come in. It struck Eliot immediately how seriously he must have scared them, as Hardison didn’t crack one single joke or even an I-told-you-so-you-stubborn-bastard smile and just came straight to his side and grabbed his hand and squeezed hard. It said even more when Parker hung near the door, looking uncertainly from beneath her long blond lashes instead of bounding forward to poke and prod him like she always did when he was otherwise injured. She looked about to cry and that made Eliot’s heart hurt. He lifted his free hand to her.

“I ain’t gonna break, darlin’,” he said in his best soft southern drawl. He crooked his fingers at her, and she came forward reluctantly and slipped her little hand into his broad palm. He squeezed gently and watched tears track down her cheeks. “Don’t cry. I’m gonna be fine. I’m fine.”

He glanced over at Hardison who was also looking very weepy. He tried his best at a good lopsided grin. “Guys, I’m okay. I’m still here, and I’m going to be fine.” He  squeezed  both their hands, but that just made Parker cry harder. “Honey, don’t. Please.”

“You never hurt,” she said, frowning. No, that wasn’t right. Those words weren’t right, but she couldn’t think of any other way to say it.

“Darlin’, I hurt a lot,” Eliot admitted slowly, casting a cautious, questioning gaze at Nate over Parker’s shoulder. He was frowning, confound a little himself by this reaction. “It’s never bothered you before.”

“But that’s because you get beat up. You ask for it,” Parker said. No, still not right. She hissed through her teeth in frustration.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Eliot said, frowning. They really thought he enjoyed getting beat up, and to a certain degree, if he was honest with himself, he did. Well, not the getting beat up part, really. But the fight…yes. He had long ago resigned himself to the idea that he just wasn’t a good, civilized boy like all the rest. He was somewhat of a throwback, and he had come to terms with that. But he didn’t intentionally go out looking for a fight. Well…not often anyway.

“I think what she’s trying to say,” Hardison pitched in, “is that you’ve never really…gotten sick before. It’s always been because somebody else hurt you, not because…” He drifted off because he could feel himself getting too close to the real crux of all of this, and he was afraid to say it out loud in case Eliot hadn’t really thought of it yet, because if he did, what would happen then? Would Eliot feel like he had lost his edge? Would he consider himself a ticking time bomb that might go off at any wrong time and leave him unable to protect them? Would he leave them because he felt like he couldn’t do his job?

“I think we should let Eliot rest.” This came from Sophie who was perched under the protective curve of Nate’s arm.

Nate nodded. “Yeah, Sophie’s right. Come on guys. Let Eliot sleep and we can see him later tonight.”

Hardison and Parker reluctantly let go of Eliot’s hands and let Sophie usher them out. Nate stayed behind a moment.

“Sleep, Eliot. We’ll see you later.”

“Nate, I…”

Nate smiled gently and squeezed Eliot’s arm. “I told you.” And he walked out.

 

Darkness had fallen when Eliot next awoke and he could feel a warm weight across his legs and against his side. “Parker?”

The weight shifted and Parker’s eyes glinted a little, like a cat’s, in the light filtering through the window. “Did I wake you?”

“No, Darlin’. No, you didn’t.”

“Do you need anything?”

“No. I’m fine.”

Parker rested her chin on the backs of her hands which she moved to fold across Eliot’s chest so she could lay looking up at him. “You say that a lot.”

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Do you mean it?”

Eliot scowled briefly. “Yeah, I do.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t just say it to make us feel better?”

“Well…”

Parker reached up to put the tips of her fingers against his cheek like she had earlier that day. “Please don’t do this again.”

“Well, I’ve only got one appendix, so…”

“That’s not what I mean,” she admonished. “Don’t keep it inside. Tell us when you hurt.”

Eliot considered this for a few long seconds. “Parker,” he started slowly, “what makes me good at what I do, is how much I can take without letting it show. Do you understand?”

“No.”

He sighed. “When you jump off a building, you feel exhilarated, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, and he could tell she was smiling just at the thought of it.

“Well, think back to the first time you did it.”

She consider this. “I was scared.”

“But you did it, and then what happened?”

“I wanted to do it again.”

“Why?”

“Because I conquered my fear.”

“Exactly,” Eliot said. Parker frowned in the dim light, and he tried to explain, “You’re still afraid, every time you go up there the fear is still there, but the thrill is in defeating it, right?”

“I guess so,” she said slowly.

“Same for me. The pain is something I work past, put away, to keep doing what I’m doing. I learned to outlast it. That’s what makes me who I am. That’s what makes me feel good.”

Parker turned her head to rest it on his chest, and he thought for a minute she might have decided to abandon the conversation, but after a long silence she said quietly, “But you don’t have to be that way with us. We won’t hurt you if you show us that you’re hurting. We love you, Eliot.”

Eliot’s heart skipped painfully in his chest at Parker’s soft admission. He knew they all thought a lot of him. He knew they cared and hated to see him suffer which was part of the reason he put up  such a tough front, but they’d never verbalized it. Not quite like that.

Eliot put a hand on her head, stroking her hair. “I love you, too, darlin’.”

 

He must have drifted off at some point because when he opened his eyes next, the room was thrust into the deep dark of the witching hours of the night, and Hardison was sitting in a chair by the bed, his face lit by the dim glow of his laptop screen. 

“Hey, man, how’re you doin’?” he asks softly.

“Not bad. Where did Parker go?”

“We decided to take you in shifts during the night,” Hardison said. “Sophie will be here in an hour or so.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Eliot said. “I’ll be fine.”

Hardison set aside his computer and picked up a bottle with a straw from the bedside table. He held it to Eliot’s lips and let him take a few sips to wet down his dried out throat. “Yeah, you keep saying’ that.”

“Yeah, I do,” Eliot admitted, thinking back to his conversation with Parker earlier.

“Well, you can stop, you know. ‘Cause we know better. You can’t’ fool us, man. We know when you hurt, and…damn.” Hardison dropped back into the chair and scrubbed at his face. Eliot could just make out the tremors in his hands in the dark.

“Hardison?”

“Damn it, man! Why don’t you trust us?”

Eliot was stunned. “I do trust you.”

“Obviously not,” Hardison said, leaning on his knees. “You keep stuff like this to yourself that nearly kills you.”

“I…it’s part of my job, Hardison—.”

“Bullshit. Your job is to—to be part of this team. In every way. We’re a—a family, man. And family trusts. With it’s deepest darkest secrets, and all its little pains and twinges, and—and stuff like that! It trusts, man!”

Eliot was at a loss for words. Hardison was all put-on ‘cool guy’ and suave on the surface but underneath that there was just a young man—a lot younger than Eliot often thought to remember—who was easily hurt by his often thoughtless and cutting remarks. And yet, he trusted Eliot implicitly, letting him bargain with his life on more than one occasion, knowing that Eliot would come through in the end, that he would never let anything happen to him. Eliot had never really stopped to think about how much that meant to him before.

He reached out and put a hand on the back of Hardison’s neck, felt him tremble under his touch. “Hardison, I’ve never trusted easily. Never could afford to, but you guys…I trust you to have my back. I know if I get in a pinch, you’ll be there with one of your fangled gadgets to get me out of it, or Parker will be there to worm me through an air duct, or Sophie to throw a smokescreen until I can get clear.” He felt Hardison reach up and cover his hand and he squeezed hard. “I do trust you. So much.”

Hardison said nothing more. He pulled Eliot’s hand from the back of his neck and held it hard between his own, pressing his forehead to Eliot’s scarred knuckles. For the first time in a very long time, Eliot felt tears burn behind his eyes.

 

Sophie was beside him when he turned his head to see the black of deep night starting to lighten toward predawn. She was leaning in and smiling and running her fingers softly through his hair. He moaned a little and turned into her touch without thinking.

“My brave white knight,” she whispered.

“In tarnished armor,” he answered.

She laughed softly. “Undoubtedly.”

He lay for several minutes, just letting her sift through his hair. It felt amazing. It had been a long time since anyone had touched him like that. It was a small thing, but it was intensely intimate, too, and he didn’t do intimate. So, no matter how many women came and went from his bed, they didn’t ever touch him like that.

“I think I might be broken, Sophie,” he said in a very small voice.

“No,” she whispered, not pausing in her stroking. “No, you’re not broken. Wounded, but never broken. You’re the strongest man I know, Eliot Spencer.”

“I won’t be forever.”

“No. No, you won’t be,” she agreed.

He was a little surprised at that answer. He had expected her to disagree, to try and bolster his ego like the rest of them. 

“But that’s all right,” she continued. “Every warrior has his day. And one day, you’ll be ready to lay down you’re shield, and you’ll know when that time is, and only you.”

Trust. There is was again. She trusted him to know his own limits, to know when he couldn’t take anymore.

“Eliot, only you know what you can take and for how long. The rest of us might not like it, and we may not like the idea that there will be a day you have to step back from the fight, but we trust in you to know when that day is. You’ve never let us down. I know you never will.”

“‘With your shield or on it,’” Eliot said softly.

“Sorry?”

“Old Greek saying,” Eliot said. “‘Come home with your shield, or on it.’ Use to be what Greek mothers would say to their sons. Means come back from battle alive with your shield in your hand, or having died an honorable death and be brought back home on it. I always figured I’d come home on mine.”

Sophie’s fingers hesitated in his hair for just a second. “Oh, Eliot…”

“I never really had anything or anyone to live for before, Sophie. But you guys…” He swallowed thickly and felt Sophie’s other hand come up to cup his cheek as he turned more into her touch. “I don’t want anything to happen to you guys. You mean…too much to  me.”

Sophie leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth, long and sweet and soft. “Nothing is going to happen as long as you’re with us. I believe in you, Eliot Spencer.”

Eliot sighed softly and let the tears come at Sophie’s whispered words. He felt her fingers in his hair again and her thumb gently brushing away his tears.

 

Soft yellow light shifting across is eyelids finally woke Eliot for the last time.

“Feeling better?”

Nate was in a chair by the bed, newspaper spread across his knee and a cup of coffee in his hand. He was in jeans, which was rare, and a button down shirt with the tails out. His hair was still damp as if he’d just gotten out of the shower not long ago. He was smiling at Eliot over his cup as he sipped the still steaming liquid.

“Nate, go home,” Eliot rasped out. His throat was dry again.

“What a greeting,” Nate said jokingly and set down his coffee to grab a bottle by the bed. He set the straw to Eliot’s lips like Hardison had during the night. Eliot took a couple of long refreshing draws off of it and then lifted his hand to take the bottle. He was glad to see it wasn’t shaking anymore.

“You are better,” Nate said approvingly and sat back in the chair. “Feel like sitting up?”

“A little.” Eliot took the bed control from Nate when he offered it and elevated the bed until he felt a twinge in his side. He shifted a little and groaned.

“Don’t push it,” Nate cautioned. “You’re still not out of the woods yet.”

“Mmm,” Eliot acknowledged.

“Did you sleep well?” Nate asked. 

Eliot looked over at him and raised a slow brow at the Cheshire cat smile that played at the corner of the older man’s lips. Nate’s glance slid to the side, and Eliot spied an earbud laying on the corner of the bedside table. He felt his cheeks color.

“You heard all that.”

“Every word.”

Eliot frowned hard. “Any reason you thought you had to?”

Nate snapped his paper closed and laid it aside, still smiling. “Well, I didn’t do it with the intentions of eavesdropping.”

“Right.”

“Honest. I left it so we could keep tabs on you if there was anything you needed during the night.”

“Everyone was here. You didn’t need to do that.”

Nate shook his head, bemused. “That wasn’t planned. I told them all to go home and let you get some rest. They took it upon themselves to keep guard over you.”

Eliot blinked. He had assumed Nate had organized his night visitors being the mastermind planner he was, always wanting to be in control of the situation. It did something funny to his insides knowing the others had taken the initiative on their own to keep vigil during the night. He closed his eyes for a moment until he felt a hand in his.

“Not one of them was wrong, Eliot,” Nate said, his voice a little rough. “They all had a point. You should listen.”

Nate started to pull away, but Eliot held him fast. “Thank you. For everything.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Eliot. It’s every one of us that should thank you. For keeping us safe, watching over us, never ever giving up no matter what the personal cost.”

Eliot nodded slowly but still didn’t let go. “But I do it because…I love you. You are…the family I’ve always wanted but never dared dream I could have. And I—I thank you for letting me be a part of that.”

Nate tried to say something, but the lump in his throat was too big. He blinked furiously to keep the stinging tears at bay. Finally, he reached down with both hands and took Eliot’s head between them and tipped it foreword a little to plant a kiss on his forehead. Eliot squeezed his eyes shut at the gesture. What he wouldn’t have given just once in his life for his own father to offer such an act of tenderness.

“You are welcome, Eliot…always.”


End file.
